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EVERY SATURDAY:

A JOURNAL OF CHOICE READING.

VOL. I.]

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SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1872.

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BLACK SHEEP, NOBODY'S FORTUNE,' ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER IV. PAULINE.

THE cold, gray morning light, shining through the little

window of a small bedroom in a second-rate hotel at Lymington, made its way through the aperture between the common dimity curtains, which had been purposely separated over night, and fell upon the slumbering figure of Pauline. The poor and scanty furniture of the room, with its dingy bed-hangings, its wooden washstand, two rushbottomed chairs, and rickety, one-sided chest of drawers, all painted a pale stone-color, were in strong contrast with the richness of coloring observable in the sleeper; observable in her jet-black hair, now taken from off her face and gathered into one large coil at the back of her head, in her olive complexion, sun-embrowned indeed, but yet showing distinctly the ebb and flow of her Southern blood, and in the deep orange-hued handkerchief, daintily knotted round her neck. See, now, how troubled are her slumbers; how from between her parted lips comes a long though scarcely audible moan; how the strong, thin hand, lying outside the coverlet, clutches convulsively at nothing; and how she seems, in her unrest, to be struggling to free herself from the thraldom of the troublous dream, under the influence of which part of the torture suffered by her during the previous day is again pressing upon her.

Yes! the woman with the pale, tear-blurred face is there once again. Once again Tom Durham stands at the carriage-door, whispering to her with evident earnestness, until the guard touches him on the shoulder, and the whistle shrieks; and then she bends forward, and he holds her for a moment in his outspread arms, and kisses her once, twice, thrice, on her lips, until he is pulled aside by the porter coming to shut the door of the already moving carriage, and she falls back in an agony of grief. There is a moisture in his eyes too, such as she, Pauline, with all her experience of him, has never seen there. He is the lover of this palefaced woman, without a doubt; and therefore he must die! She will kill him herself! She will kill him with the pearl-handled knife which Gaetano, the mate of the Italian ship, gave her, telling her that all the Lombard girls wore such daggers in their garters ready for the heart of any Tedesco who might insult them, or any other girl who might prove their rival. The dagger is up stairs, in the little bedroom at the top of the house, overlooking the Cannebière, which she shares with Mademoiselle Mathilde. She will fetch it at once, and after it has served its purpose she will carry it to the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, and hang it up among the votive offerings; the pictures of shipwrecks, storms, sea-fights, and surgical operations; the models of vessels, the ostrich eggs, the crutches left by cripples no longer lame, and the ends of the ropes by which men have been saved from drowning. How clearly she can see the place, and all its contents, before her now! She will leave the dagger there: as the weapon by which a traitor and an Englishman has been slain, it will not be out of place, though Père Gasselin shake his head and lift his monitory finger. She will fetch it at once! Ah, how

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delicious and yet how strange seem to her the smell of the pot-au-feu, and the warm aroma of the chocolate! How steep the stairs seem to have become: she will never be able to reach the top! What is this Pierre and Jean are saying? The sea has swept away the breakwater at La Joliette, and is rapidly rushing into the town! It is here, it is in the street below! Fighting madly with the boiling waters is one man- she can catch a glimpse of his face now. Grand Dieu, it is Tom! She will save himlate! he is borne swiftly past, he is

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And with a short, suppressed scream she woke. It was probably the rapping of the chambermaid at the bedroom door which dissipated Pauline's dream, and recalled her to herself; and it is certain that the chambermaid, whose quick ears caught the scream, went down stairs more than ever impressed with terror at the "foreign person" whom she had scarcely had sufficient courage to conduct to her room on the previous evening. Notwithstanding the bizarre shape which they had assumed, these reminiscences of a portion of Pauline's past life had been so vivid, that it was with great difficulty she could clear her brain, and arrive at an idea of why she found herself in the dingy bedroom of a country inn, and of what lay before her. Sitting upon the edge of her bed, with her arms crossed upon her bosom, she gradually recalled the occurrences of the previous day, and came to comprehend what had been the key-note of her dream, and who was the palefaced woman whose presence had so disturbed her. There was, however, no time for reflection at that moment; she had been aroused in accordance with instructions given on the previous night, and there was but little time for her to dress herself and to make her way to the station, where she was to await the arrival of her husband. Her toilet completed, she hurried down stairs, and declining to taste any of the substantial breakfast which the hearty Hampshire landlady was then engaged in discussing, and to which she invited her visitor, issued out into the broad street of the quiet old town.

Past the low-windowed shops, where the sleepy 'prentice boys were taking down the shutters, and indulging in such fragmentary conversation as could be carried on under the eyes of their masters, which they knew were bent upon them from the upper rooms; past the neat little post-office, where the click of the telegraph needles was already audible, and whence were issuing the sturdy country postmen, each with his huge well-filled leathern wallet on his back; past the yacht-builder's yard, where the air was redolent of pitch and tar, and newly-chipped wood; where, through the half-opened gates, could be seen the slender, tapering masts of many yachts already laid up for the season in the creek, and where a vast amount of hammering and sawing and planing was, as the neighbors thought, interminably going on. Not but what the yacht-building yard is one of the great features of the place; for were it not for the yacht owners, who first come down to give orders about the building of their vessels, then pay a visit to see how their instructions are being carried out, and finally, finding the place comfortable, tolerably accessible, and not too dear, bring their wives and families, and make it their headquarters for the yachting season, what stranger would ever come to Lymington? what occupants would be found for its lodging-houses and hotels?

The clock struck seven as Pauline passed through the

booking-office at the railway-station, and stepped out on to the platform. She looked hastily round her in search for Tom Durham, but did not see him. A sudden chill fell upon her, as the remembrance of her dream flashed across her mind. The next instant she was chiding herself for imagining that he would be there. There was yet half an hour before the arrival of the train by which they were to proceed to Weymouth; he would be tired by his long swim from the ship to the shore, his clothes would of course be saturated, and he would have to dry them; he would, doubtless, rest as long as he could in the place where he had found shelter, and only join her just in time to start. There was no doubt about his finding shelter somewhere, he was too clever not to do that; he was the cleverest man in all the world; it was for his talent she had chosen him from all the others years ago; it was for and then Pauline's face fell, remembering that Tom Durham was as unscrupulous as he was clever, and that if this pale-faced woman were really any thing to him he would occupy his talent in arranging how and when to meet her in secret, in planning how to obtain further sums of money from the old man whose messenger she had been.

How the thought of that woman haunted her! How her whole life seemed to have changed since she had witnessed that parting at the railway-station yesterday! She felt that it would be impossible for her to hide from Tom the fact that she was laboring under doubt and depression of some kind or other. She knew his tact and determination in quickly learning whatever he thought it behooved him to find out; and she thought it would be better to speak openly to him, to tell him what she had seen, and to ask him for some explanation. Yes: she would do that. The train was then in sight; he would no longer delay putting in an appearance on the platform, and in a few minutes they would be travelling away to soft air, and lovely scenery, with more than sufficient money for their present wants, and for a time, at least, with rest and peace before them. Then she would tell him all, and he would doubtless re-assure her, showing her how silly and jealous she had been, but forgiving her because she had suffered solely through her love for him.

By this time a number of passengers had gathered together on the platform, awaiting the arrival of the train; and Pauline passed hastily among them, looking eagerly to the right and left, and, retracing her steps through the booking-office, opened the door and glanced up the street leading to the station. No sign of Tom Durham anywhere! Perhaps he had found a nearer station to a point at which he had swum ashore, and would be in the train now rapidly approaching.

The train stopped; two or three passengers alighted, and were so soon mixed up with the crowd of sailors, shipcarpenters, and farm-laborers rushing to take their seats, that Pauline could not distinguish them, but she knew Tom was not amongst them; and when she walked quickly down the line of carriages, throwing a rapid but comprehensive glance round each, she saw him not, and the train passed on, and she was left once more alone upon the plat

form.

Then, with frowning brows, and set, rigid lips, Pauline commenced walking up and down, covering with her long, striding footsteps, so different from her usual easy, swimming gait, exactly the same amount of space at every turn, wheeling, apparently unconsciously, at the same point, treading almost in the same prints which she had previously made, keeping her eyes steadfastly fixed on the ground, and being totally unaware of all that was passing She was a clear-headed as well as a strongaround her. willed woman, accustomed to look life and its realities boldly in the face; and, unlike the majority of her countrymen and women, swift to detect shallowness of sophistry when propounded by others, and careful never even to attempt to impose upon herself. Throughout her life, so long as she could remember, she had been in the habit of thinking out any project of importance which had arisen in her career, while walking to and fro, just as she was doing then. It was, perhaps, the sameness of the action, perhaps some

reminiscence of her dream still lingering in her mind, that turned her memory to the last occasion when she had taken such thoughtful exercise; and the scene, exactly as it occurred, rose before her.

The time, early morning, not much after six o'clock; the place, the Prado at Marseilles; the persons, a few belated, blue-bloused workmen hurrying to their work; a few soldiers lounging about as only soldiers always seem to lounge when they are not on duty, a limonadiere with her temple deposited on the ground by her side, while she washes the sparkling tin cups in a gurgling drinking-fountain. Two or three water-carts pounding along, and refreshingly sprinkling the white, dusty road; two or three English grooms exercising horses, and she, Pauline Lunelle, dame du comptoir at the Restaurant du Midi, in the Cannebière, pacing up and down the Prado, and turning over in her mind a proposition, on the acceptance or rejection of which depended her future happiness or misery. That proposition was a proposition of marriage, not by any means the first that she had received. The handsome, black-eyed, black-haired, olive-skinned dame du comptoir was one of the reigning belles of the town, and the Restaurant du Midi was such a popular place of resort that she never lacked admirers. All the breakfast-eaters, the smokers, the billiard-players, even the decorated old gentlemen who dropped in as regularly as clockwork every evening for a game of dominoes or tric-trac, paid their court to her; and in several cases this court was something more than the mere conventional hat-doffing, or the few words of empty politeness whispered to her as she attended to the settlement of their accounts. Adolphe de Noailles, only a souslieutenant of artillery to be sure, but a man of good family, and who, it was said, was looked upon with favor by Mademoiselle Krebs, daughter of old Monsieur Krebs, the German banker, who was so rich, and who gave such splendid parties, had asked Pauline Lunelle to become his wife; had "ah-bah-d" when she talked about the difference in their positions, and had insisted that in appearance and manner she was equal to any lady in the south of France. So had Heinrich Wetter, head clerk and cashier in the bank of Monsieur Krebs aforesaid; a tall, fair, lymphatic young man, who, until his acquaintance with Pauline, had thought of nothing but Vaterland, and the first of exchange, but who professed himself ready to become naturalized as a Frenchman, and to take up his abode for life in Marseilles, if she would only listen to his suit. So had Frank Jenkins, attached to the British post-office, and in that capacity bringing the Indian mails from London to Marseilles, embarking them on board the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, and waiting the arrival of the return mail which carried them back to England; a big, jolly, massive creature, well known to everybody in the town as Monsieur Jenkins, or the "courier Anglais," who had a bedroom at the Hotel de Paradis, but who spent the whole of his time at the Restaurant du Midi, drinking beer, or brandy, or absinthe, it was all the same to him, to keep the landlord "square," as he phrased it, but never taking his eyes off the dame du comptoir, and never losing an opportunity of paying her the most outrageous compliments in the most outrageous French ever heard even in that city of polyglot strangers.

If Pauline Lunelle had a tenderness for any of them, it was for the sous-lieutenant; at the Englishmen, and, indeed, at a great many others - Frenchmen, commis-voyageurs, tradesmen in the city, or clerks in the merchants' offices on the Quai-she laughed unmercifully. Not to their faces, indeed, that would have been bad for business; and Pauline throughout her life had the keenest eye to her own benefit. Her worth as a decoy-duck was so fully appreciated by Monsieur Etienne, the proprietor of the restaurant, that she had insisted upon receiving a commission on all moneys paid by those whose visits thither were unquestionably due to her attraction. But when they had retired for the night, the little top bedroom, which she occupied in conjunction with Mademoiselle Mathilde, would ring with laughter, caused by her repetition of the sweet things which had been said to her during the evening by

her admirers, and her imitations of the manner and accents in which they had been delivered. So Adolphe de Noailles had it all his own way, and Pauline had seriously debated within herself whether she should not let him run the risk of offending his family and marrying him out of hand (the disappointment to be occasioned thereby to Mademoiselle Krebs, a haughty and purse-proud young lady, being one of her keenest incentives to the act), when another character appeared upon the scene.

This was another Englishman, but in every way as different as possible to poor Mr. Jenkins; not merely speaking French like a Parisian, but salting his conversation with a vast amount of Parisian idiomatic slang, full of fun and wild practical jokes; impervious to ridicule, impossible to be put down, and spending his money in the most lavish and free-handed manner possible. This was Tom Durham, who had suddenly turned up in Marseilles, no one knew why; he had been to Malta, he said, on a venture," and the venture had turned out favorably, and he was going back to England, and had determined to enjoy himself by the way. He was constantly at the Restaurant du Midi, paid immense attention to the dame du comptoir, and she in her turn was fascinated by his good temper, his generous ways, his strange, eccentric goings on. But Tom Durham, laughing, drinking, and spending his money, was the same cool, observant creature that he had been ever since he shipped as 'prentice on board the "Gloucestershire,” when he was fifteen years of age. All the time of his sojourn at the Restaurant du Midi, he was carefully "taking stock," as he called it, of Pauline Lunelle. In his various schemes he had long felt the want of a female accomplice, and he thought he had at last found the person whom he had for some time been seeking. That she was worldly-wise he knew, or she would never have achieved the position which she held in Monsieur Etienne's establishment; that there was far more in her than she had ever yet given proof of, he believed; for Mr. Tom Durham was a strong believer in physiognomy, and had more than once found the study of some use to him. Sipping his lemonade and cognac, and puffing at his cigar, he sat night after night, talking pleasantly with any chance acquaintance, but inwardly studying Pauline Lunelle; and when his studies were completed, he had made up his mind that he saw in her a wonderful mixture of headstrong passion and calm common-sense, unscrupulous, unfearful, devoted, and capable of carrying out any thing, no matter what, which she had once made up her mind to perform. "A tamable tiger, in point of fact," said Tom Durham to himself as he stepped out into the street, and picked his way across the filthy gutters towards his home, and, if only kept in proper subjection, capable of being made any thing of." He knew there was only one way by which Pauline could be secured, and he made up his mind to propose to her the next night.

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He proposed accordingly, but Pauline begged for four and twenty hours to consider her decision; and in the early morning she went out into the Prado to think it all through, and deliberately to weigh the merits of the propositions made respectively by Adolphe de Noailles and Tom Durham; the result being, that the sous-lieutenant's hopes were crushed forever,- or for fully a fortnight, when they blossomed in another direction, and that Pauline, dame du comptoir no longer, linked her fate with that of Tom Durham. Thenceforward they were all in all to each other she had no relatives, nor, as he told her, had he ("I have not seen Alice for five years," he said to himself; and from what I recollect of her, she was a stuck-up, strait-laced little minx, likely to look down upon my young friend, the tiger, here, and give herself airs which the tiger certainly would not understand; so, as they are not likely to come together, it will be better to ignore her existence altogether)." In all his crooked schemes, and they were many and various, Pauline took her share, unflagging, indefatigable, clear in counsel, prompt in action, jealous of every word, of every look, he gave to any other woman, at the same time the slave of his love, and the prop and mainstay of his affairs. Tom Durham himself had not that quality which he imputed to his half-sister: he cer

tainly was not strait-laced; but his escapades, if he had any, were carefully kept in the background, and Pauline, suspicious as she was, had never felt any real ground for jealousy until she had witnessed the scene at parting at the Southampton station.

The Prado and its associations had faded out of her mind, and she was trying to picture to herself the various chances which could possibly have detained her husband, when a porter halted before her, and, civilly touching his cap, asked for what train she was waiting.

"The train for Weymouth," she replied.

"For Weymouth!" echoed the porter: "the train for Weymouth has just gone."

"Yes, I know that," said Pauline; "but I was expecting some one a gentlemen to meet me. He will probably

come in time for the next." "You will have a longish waiting bout," said the man; "next train don't come till two forty-five, nigh upon three o'clock."

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That is long," said Pauline. "And the next?"

Only one more after that," said the porter, "eightforty; gets into Weymouth somewhere between ten and eleven at night. You'll never think of waiting here, ma'am, for either of them! Better go into the town to one of the hotels, or have a row on the river, or something to pass the time."

"Thank you," said Pauline, to whom a sudden idea had occurred. "How far is it from here to-how do you call the place- Hurstcastle?"

"To where, ma'am? Oh, Hurst Castle! I didn't understand you, you see, at first; you didn't make two words of it. It is Hurst Castle, where the king was kept a prisoner -him as had his head cut off; and where there's a barracks and a telegraph station for the ships now."

"Yes," she said, "exactly; that's the place; how far is it from here?"

"Well, it's about seven mile, take it altogether; but you can't drive all the way. You could have a fly to take you four miles, and he'd bring you to a boat, and he'd take you in and out down a little river through the marshes, until you came to a beach, on the other side of which the castle stands. But, lor' bless me, miss, what's the use o' going at all? there's nothing to see when you get there!"

"I wish to go," said Pauline, smiling. "You see, I am a foreigner, and I want to see where your British king was kept a prisoner. Can I get a fly here?"

The porter said he would find her one at once, and speedily redeemed his promise.

Through neat villages and wooded lanes Pauline was driven, until she came to a large, bare, open tract of country, on the borders of which the fly stopped, and the flyman descending, handed her down some steps cut in the steep bank and into an old broad-bottomed boat, where a grizzled, elderly man, with his son, were busy mending an old duckgun. They looked up with astonishment when the flyman said, "Lady wants to go down to have a look at the castle, Jack: I'll wait here, ma'am, until they bring you back."

They spread an old jacket for her in the stern of the boat, and, when she was seated, took to their oars, and pulled away with a will. It was a narrow, intricate, winding course, a mere thread of shallow, sluggish water, twisting in and out among the great gray marshes, fringed with tall, flapping weeds; and Pauline, already over-excited and overwrought, was horribly depressed by the scene. "Are you always plying in this boat?" she asked the old

man.

"Most days, ma'am, in case we should be wanted up at the steps, there,” he replied; "but night's our best time, we reckon."

"Night!" she echoed. "Surely there are no passengers at night-time?"

"No, ma'am; not passengers, but officers and sportsmen: gentlemen coming out gunning after the ducks and the wild-fowl," he added, seeing she looked puzzled, and pointing to a flock of birds feeding at some distance from them.

"And are you out every night?" she asked eagerly.

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did you meet any one else between this and

'Well, no, maʼam,” said the old man, with a low chuckle. "It ain't a place where one meets many people, I reckon. Besides the ducks, a heron or two was about the strangest visitors we saw last night. Now, miss, here we are at the beach; you go straight up there, and you'll find the castle just the other side. When you come back, please shape your course for that black stump you see sticking up there; tide's falling, and we sha'n't be able to bide where we are now, but we will meet you there."

Lightly touching the old man's arm, Pauline jumped from the boat, and rapidly ascending the sloping head, found herself, on gaining the top, close by a one-storied, whitewashed cottage, in a little bit of reclaimed land, half garden, half yard, in which was a man in his shirt-sleeves washing vegetables, with a big black retriever dog lying at his feet. Accosting him, Pauline learned that the house was the telegraph station, whence the names of the outgoing and incoming ships are telegraphed to Lloyd's for the information of their owners. In the course of further conversation, the man said that the "Massilia" had anchored there during the night, had got her steam up and was off by daybreak: he took watch and watch with his comrade, and he turned out just in time to see her start.

Pauline thanked him, and returned to the boat; but she did not speak to the old man on her return passage, and when she reached the fly which was waiting for her, she threw herself into a corner, and remained buried in thought until she was deposited at the station.

A few minutes after, the train bound for Weymouth arrived. Through confusion, similar to that of the morning, she hurried along, criticising the passengers on the platform and in the carriages, and with the same vain result. The train proceeded on its way, and Pauline walked towards the hotel with the intention of getting some refreshment, which she needed. Suddenly, she paused, reeled, and would have fallen, had she not leaned against a wall for support. A thought like an arrow had passed through her brain- -a thought which found its utterance in these words:

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THE veiled prophet of Khorassan was a person of considerable interest only as long as it was impossible to make any thing out of him. The first individual to whom he condescended to show his face was disgusted with his ugli

ness.

The first lady who saw it fainted with affright. As soon as it was clearly ascertained that he was an ugly personage his fortunes fell, and nobody cared a fig for the once interesting Mokanna.

There is another nut to crack for the curious in that thing which has a name called "Junius." If it were once thoroughly settled who that pseudonymic shadow was, not a soul would continue to take the slightest concern in him or his history. Dozens of men daily write as well as Junius wrote. It is not any extraordinary merit in his style, nor any especially brilliant quality in his method or manner, in his imagination or expression, that has kept his name alive. He was, after all, a cowardly ruffian, whoever he may have been. Guy Fawkes, under the name of Mr. Johnson, preparing a train to blow up king, lords, and commons, -not forgetting means for Mr. Johnson's escape, was a hero compared with Junius. The latter assailed his enemies (men, at all events, whom he hated) from an

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ambush which could never be detected. If Francis and Junius were identical, then Francis was the most ungrateful rascal that ever lived, for Junius stabs with greatest fury at men to whom Francis was indebted for the most important acts of kindness. Junius remains veiled, and thence arises all modern interest in him. Were his identity established beyond all question, human interest in him would be extinguished, at once and forever.

These matters were passing through our perfectly ingenuous mind, when, happening to open that part of the "Journal de Barbier" which comes under the head of "Chronique du Regne de Louis XV.," our acute eye fell upon the opening passage in the record for August, 1748. The passage is to this effect: "In the beginning of this month a state prisoner arrived in the Bastile, in a carriage, escorted by fifty men. It came from Strasburg, which city it left under a guard of two hundred men." Barbier goes on to say, that the general report in Paris identified the mysterious prisoner with the Chevalier de Guise. This de Guise was a young villain of two and twenty years of age, and colonel of a regiment in the army, commanded by Marshal Saxe. The marshal had discovered that his colonelchevalier was in treasonable correspondence with the queen of Hungary and her generals, to whom the recreant Frenchman had been conveying information of the proceedings and intentions of the marshal, as far as they could be penetrated. De Guise had certainly been arrested, and, as was not uncommon with state prisoners, nothing more was heard of him. The Parisians were soon set guessing again. The unknown prisoner could be no other, they thought, than the Marquis de Pont, whose offence was comprised under the phrase, "Il a fait plusieurs extravagances à l'armée." De Guise or de Pont, the question was never solved. Who the prisoner was, or what became of him, was never explained. He may have been one of the few who were enlarged when, more than forty years later, the Bastile closed the last chapter of its history.

Now, this circumstance of mystery and the Bastile brought back to our mind that old story of the Man in the Iron Mask. What a romantic and interesting personage he is! What books have been and will continue to be written about him! And how all the interest would collapse if we only knew for certain who he was! He? Man in the iron mask? We should say they-men in the iron masks. There are above a score of claimants to the distinction of having worn the so-called iron mask. Half a dozen writers have prided themselves in having discovered the real hero. Each has his favorite. Each looks down with ineffable pity upon the supposed proofs of identification brought forward on behalf of any poor wretch but the pet one of the especial writer. Each writes his story, and swears to the truth of it. As we close narrative after narrative, the new London slang phrase seems to strike upon the ear, of" Stick to it! says Baigent."

It was easy to make out stories for prisoners of whom nothing was really known. In 1722, Barbier recorded the death in the Bastile of the "father of the captives;" that is the oldest, or doyen, of the prisoners. Thirty-five years had the nameless man been within those gloomy walls. He was originally suspected of being suspicious. It was thought that he might have some idea of poisoning the minister of war, M. de Louvois, who died in 1691. When arrested he was in the dress of a Jacobin friar. There was no shadow of proof against him. It was said he spoke such a jargon that no one of the king's interpreters of any known language, spoken or unspoken, could understand a single word of what he uttered; consequently, the public were told, that it was impossible to discover his name, his nationality, or the reason for his appearing in the Jacobin garb. All which, it appears, was a good reason for burying him alive during five and thirty years in the Bastile. Books, pen, ink, and paper, were all kept from him. What could an incomprehensible man want with such trifles? For thirty and five years the nameless man sat and thought. To what home did his thoughts tend? In what home were thoughts and tears springing for him? Speech dared not be uttered in behalf of such a victim.

When a

poor

man was suddenly seized and shut up, about whom the government desired that the outer world should know nothing, a fictitious story was made, and the family of the wretch were forbidden to make inquiry after him. Indeed, the government desire to avoid discussion in such affairs went much farther than this. There was a horrible conciseness in the official declaration-generally coming from the king himself— as to how the prisoner, whom it was not expedient to slay, was to be preserved, dead-alive. There was nothing of the circumlocution office in it. Fancy Louis XIV., that most Christian majesty, rising from his golden bed or from a gorgeous banquet, turning from the most exquisite of earthly pleasures, to pen a little order for the perpetual imprisonment of some obnoxious individual, ending with the awful words, "Take especial care that the world hears nothing more of this man!"

When we ask for the man in the iron mask, we find ourselves in the middle of a circle, consisting of about two dozen gentlemen in sad-colored suits. Each has his face concealed beneath a velvet mask on steel springs (the mask was not of iron, at all). Each puts his hand on his heart, bows gravely, and, to whichever side we turn, we hear from the half-hidden lips a murmur which says, or which seems to say, "I am the genuine personage, and all others are counterfeits."

How can we deal with such a group of solemn individuals? If only one be genuine, must all the rest necessarily be impostors? Let us eliminate the "supers" in this dramatic group. They are men without names. They have no supporters. We request all such to break up the circle, and to leave the room. They withdraw slowly, with a disappointed air. They have suffered, but cannot be famous. They are not eligible for martyrdom; obscurity inwraps them. When they have glided away beyond vision, we are somewhat relieved at finding that there remain only six or seven claimants to the honor of having been the heroes of an impenetrable mystery, and of having worn a mask which has hitherto been impenetrable to the most persistent and ingenious curiosity.

Still, here are some half-dozen claimants, and there is only one alleged hero or martyr. Each of these has had his advocate or champion, who has been proud to speak of his client as Serj. Ballantyne spoke of "the Claimant," namely, "The gentleman whom I represent." "Well," we say to these claimants in masks, "gentlemen, we will take you one at a time. While we are treating with one, the others must remain out of court." There is a murmur of not a very cordial assent; but all the masked individuals rise from their chairs, bow silently, in token of accepting the arrangement proposed, and wait to see who is to be under examination the first. Each has his foot forward, his head slightly bent, and his hand on the back of his chair, as if he expected to be summoned to remain, and as if he had a right to the distinction of enjoying precedency over the others. We are perplexed. The masks are silent.

We examine them keenly. We would fain take the most interesting first. We are forced to take our chance. We adopt selection so far as to point to a personage of gallant bearing, despite apparent feebleness. He resumes his seat, with a proud and conscious air, as if nothing had happened but what he might expect in regard to the urgency of his claims. The rest look on for a moment, with an air of jealousy at the favor he has found; and they shake their masks and their heads in silent derision of his pretensions. But he waves his hand to them, as if he had been accustomed to wave it in princely courts; and uttering a "Stand all apart!" as Edmund Kean used to utter it when you first saw him seated on the throne as Richard III., the same consequence followed. All, thus peremptorily bidden, glide away into outward darkness, till their presence, simultaneously, or one after the other, may be again required on the stage.

The mask flung himself back in his chair: he became perfectly easy, and fell into such loquacious details, that in a very short space of time we learned from him that he was an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII.; that his birth was known to Cardinal Richelieu;

that his half-brother, Louis XIV., became aware of the fact just after his accession, and that the young king had shut him up for life, and clapped the famous mask upon him, to keep him out of mischief and of the knowledge of the world at large. At this juncture, and as the rather shadowy personage was uttering the names of one or two persons who believed in his claim, another mask, who had indiscreetly entered the room without being summoned, lounged up to the chair where the protoclaimant was seated, and very rudely exclaimed, "It's all a cock-and-bull story! You a son of Anne of Austria? I am a son of Anne of Austria, legitimate twin-brother of Louis XIV., born before him, but unjustly deprived of all my rights of primogeniture, and shut up for life, that the handsome twin might reign." Saying this, the mask sat down in the lap of the other pretender, who, faintly remarking that the Duke of Buckingham was his father, seemed to evaporate altogether. "There was nothing substantial in him," Isaid the second claimant. "The real fact is as I have stated; and I was privily put aside in order that my younger brother might reign." We thought this story even lamer than that of the former claimant. "It is believed in, however," he remarked, "by eminent persons, writers of historical romance, romantic history, novels, and melodramas." When we asked if he would swear to the details, he exclaimed, "Oh, there you are at your swearing!" and the chair was suddenly empty.

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There stood, however, at its side, quite as suddenly, the third claimant. He was even more assured in his bearing than the two who had preceded him. "You know me, of course," was his remark. Our rejoinder was that we could not possibly recognize a face with a mask over it. "True," he exclaimed; "but I am the Comte de Vermandois;" and he added a "Voilà," as if the whole question was settled. We were silent. He resumed, with some petulance in his voice, as if he resented being doubted: "Mademoiselle de la Vallière was my mother. Read the 'Mémoires sécrètes pour servir à l'histoire de Perse.' Perse, you know, means Paris. Father Greffet believes in me. There is no other genuine unadulterated man in the iron mask but your humble servant. You may tell every reader of Temple Bar that fact. The two claimants who preceded me are impalpable shadows. They never existed. I am the first person ever described as the man in the iron mask. The pretended illegitimate son of Anne of Austria and Buckingham, and the equally pretended legitimate twin-brother of Louis XIV., were simply invented afterwards. You know that is the case."

We certainly knew that Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vermandois, was once a real, living, historical personage, the son of La Vallière and Louis, le grand monarque. We know too, now, that the gallant but dissipated Vermandois, who was said to have been imprisoned and masked, by order of Louis XIV., for the alleged offence of striking the Grand Dauphin, was, throughout his life, in presence of the public, and was with the army in Flanders, where he died, in 1673. He was buried with gorgeous ceremony in the cathedral of Paris. Now, the so-called genuine iron mask died in 1703, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Paul, in Paris.

"Read

"It was a pretended funeral," said the count. Pecquet. In his Mémoires Sécrètes,' he says I was privately seized and spirited away."

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Why, Pecquet," we replied, "was shut up in the Bastile himself, for writing those lies about you."

"And the public have believed in them. See what a price is given for the book, even now! Col. Stanley's copy sold for 21. 5s. Of translations there were many. George Faulkner printed a pirated edition, in Dublin, in 1765."

"M. le Comte," we said, "go in peace. You have been made the dupe of an ill-contrived story. The other claimants were not even the individuals they claimed to be. You are Louis de Bourbon; but you are no more the masked prisoner than they are. Adieu!"

"Enfoncé!" exclaimed the count. "I don't believe a word of it myself!"- and he passed through the door, courteously saluted by the next who entered.

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